Recollection
by Scm
Summary: I always thought it would be Olivia.' 'So did I.' [AlexElliot, canon fic, spoilers Season 2 through 6 rated M for language, situations, etc. You were warned.]
1. Epilogue

**Author's Notes: **This story is 21chapters long, including an epilogue and a prologue (1000 words each), 50 drabbles (100 words each/ 5 per chapter), and 9 ficlets (500 words each). It is meant to tell of a relationship between Alex and Elliot on _SVU_ (I ignore _Conviction_ and the fact that Alex is back), beginning in season 2 and going through season 6, because season 7 doesn't feature Alex nor is it worth my time and I'm pretty sure _Conviction_ is going to screw with any subtext one could read into any Alex-pairing from _SVU_. This was also started pre-_Conviction_ and I didn't want to play around with a post-"Ghost", pre-_Conviction _Alex.  
The ficlets/drabbles, etc are interconnected and telling ONE story. Almost every character is featured, or will be featured, by the end.  
Also, the story moves backwards, starting with the "epilogue" (season 6) and moving back to the "prologue" (end of season 1).  
Canonical errors in the epilogue are purposeful (I steal from season 7). The very last chapter ("22") will be notes, including spoilers and credits from episodes, where needed.  
Oh, one last thing... at the time I originally wrote/posted this, I planned on the story being a story on its own. It is/will be, but will also be part of a series elsewhere and the order of the chapters will change so they move forward consequtively (rather than backward).  
That is all.

**Disclaimer:** The characters and (some) of the situations belong to DW, et al.

* * *

_Epilogue  
__February 24, 2004_

* * *

"How are you, Elliot?"

"Fine." He sighs. "This is mandatory, but I don't have to say anything." He leans against the wall. The position reminds Huang of a rebellious teenager or an angry child.

"No. The rest of these fifty-eight minutes might go by faster if you do, though."

Elliot sits down in the chair. "Did you know that Alex studied psych in college?" He plays with his hands, studies the calluses on his fingers as he speaks.

"No, I didn't."

"Psych and sociology, she said. She was going to shrink me once."

"And?"

He looks up from his hands. Simply, he replies, "She didn't."

"What was the case?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm assuming it was after a case. Which one?"

"Do you remember Richard Manning, the doctor who gave his wife a caesarian and killed the baby?"

"Yes. You were very...conflicted...during that case."

"No. I was angry."

"There was a lot going on at home then, too."

He plays with his ring. "Yes." When he sees Huang watching him, he fixes it on his finger and pulls his right hand away, sitting up, crossing one ankle over his knee.

"Like now."

"No. There's nothing going on at home. There's no one there."

"During the Manning case, why did you go to Alex?"

He remembers the way she placed her hand against his, the way it felt. Everything was beginning to slip from him and he was just starting to see it. When she held him, kissed him, it didn't hurt anymore. At least for a time.

Huang looks up at him, a look of concern crossing his features. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"You got up."

He lies: "Stiff." He sits back down.

"Tell me more about Alex."

"No."

"You were close." Elliot looks past him, out the window. "How did Kathy feel about you and her spending so much time together?"

"She didn't know." He sits back down at his wife's name. "I lied to her. I would tell her that I had to stay late or come in early, or that I was catching, and that it was easier if I just stayed at the crib. She trusted me. After eighteen years of marriage I trusted her to be faithful, too."

"Why did you go to Alex?"

Elliot paused. "Do you know why Olivia's single?"

"Why do you think she is?"

"She's a beautiful woman - smart, strong... but as soon as she says 'special victims', men either walk away or they become too interested. There's no one who just understands."

"Did you get to that point with Kathy?"

He nods. "I stopped talking. We'd gotten to the point where you talk about your day, and things that happen with mutual friends, about the kids, what needs to get done or be paid for... That's it. She took care of the house and the bills. We talk about the kids, but that conversation can only last for so long. So then we were left with the anecdotes about work..."

"And work is a large part of your life."

"This job, besides them, is my life. But I couldn't tell her about it. I couldn't say, sweetheart, you know what I did today? I interviewed a twelve-year-old boy who murdered the man who was sexually abusing him and his sister for five years. Or, honey, I met a woman today who will never speak again because she was raped and then beaten so badly a plate had to be put into the side of her head and her face reconstructed."

"But you could talk to Alex?"

He nods.

"What about Munch or Fin or Olivia?"

"It's too difficult with them." He says, softly.

"Difficult, how?"

"Alex knew when I needed her to just listen or when I needed her input. We may have fought in the bullpen or her office, but when one of us just needed to be heard, the other was there. I don't think I could have done that with them..."

"Why not?"

"They're too close. They see the things I see, close-up, hands-on. Alex was removed, if only a little. It made it easier. Me and Alex weren't attacking case theory...we were...just talking."

"When did it become romantic?"

He hesitates, surprised by the question. "I don't... I don't know." He pauses. "When we went to New Jersey to interview Brodus. Things started to change then."

"When she was shot, what did you feel?"

He thinks for a second, closes his eyes. He can remember the round fired into her back, the feel of the pavement under his feet as he chased the SUV, then the way she looked when he turned and saw Olivia bent over her, holding her. "Pissed off. Until I saw her... There was this rush of adrenaline. I could catch the guy. I could see the license plate. I saw Liv was okay, and I just assumed about Alex... I never thought she'd get hurt."

"What did you think?"

"I thought... if anyone was going to be shot, ever, it was going to be me or Olivia. We were the cops. We were facing the risk. But she was the one who ended up dead or... gone."

"What did you feel when you saw her again?"

"Fear... She died. I let her."

"How?"

"I... it was my job to protect her. I let her down." He is giving too much, he decides, and he's suddenly tempted to leave.

"You didn't get to say goodbye."

"It was better. For everyone."

"You mean it was easier."

"No. Better."

Huang nods. "Did the relationship have a role in your separation from Kathy?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell Alex about the separation?"

"She found out."

"What effect has the separation had on yours and Alex's relationship?"

"Alex and I... are done."

"Was it mutual?"

"No break-up is mutual."

"Who ended it?"

"Alex."

"Why?"

"Kathy, the kids..."

"Did you love her?"

"I could've."

"What happens if she comes back?"

"Then, I guess we start over..."


	2. February 23, 2004 thru December 12, 2003

_Even when we win, we lose._

Aziza Amir. Elias Barras. Randall McKenna. Tito Frank. Tommy Dowd. Jean Weston. Sam Cavanaugh. Jeremy Brice. Cheryl Avery. Ray Bevins. Joe Blaine. Tim Donovan. Others…

Victims. People. Who the system had tried to help. Or who were once suspects, maybe perpetrators. Who were wronged. People who had lost as she had.

People who were gone.

When she was alive, she had visited the faces. Or the graves. Now that she is essentially among them, Elliot leaves the fresh flowers.

The list now includes Alexandra Cabot. More.

He'd told her when she returned.

She'd cried.

* * *

Olivia sinks down beside Casey. Casey's hand runs along the beer she's sipping while listening to Elliot and Munch debate JFK's assassination. She waits to prod, "Perhaps JFK never died."

They turn to Casey. "See, that's what I'm talking about… it could've been—" Munch continues though they've stopped listening. Olivia watches her melt with Elliot's smile.

"I have to use the bathroom."

"You can manage yourself," Casey hisses. Olivia takes her arm, leads her to the back.

"It'll never happen."

"What are you talking about?"

"He loved Kathy. He cared about Alex. Leave it alone."

Casey, surprised, just nods.

* * *

"I always thought it would be Olivia." Her words are slow and calculated, sad, angry, disappointed.

Olivia. His partner, best friend.

He couldn't talk to her, like he can't talk to Kathy; when he tried, it either became about her or him. It was never about the case, about the victim, about _why_…

Alex knew to just sit. Or make coffee. Or draw him into her arms.

He turns back to her, his wife of twenty years, sitting across the table. Kathy breathes in a long raspy breath and covers her shaking chin with a fist, waiting. "So did I."

* * *

"'You okay?"

"Yeah." Alex says, arms crossed in front of her. "How about you? I heard about Kathy."

A look of sadness fills his eyes, but he only shrugs and says, instead, "I miss you. Just talking to you."

She walks up to him and leaves a chaste kiss on his bottom lip. She's tempted to reach out and put her arms around him, to touch him, and only allows herself to when he finally hugs her.

"I heard there's someone in Wisconsin."

"It was temporary."

"Were we?"

"We could never be permanent, El."

Knowing it's true, he smiles. "Backgammon?"

* * *

He nibbles her collarbone. "Telling the truth is erotic." She looks over him: brown eyes, hair, only average height.

Not her type. Certainly not Elliot.

"You're a writer?" She guesses.

"How did you know?"

"Construction workers don't come up with lines like that."

"What about entrepreneurs?"

_What I said I was._ She shakes her head. She's numb. He feels like nothing.

"Tell me something truthful about you, Emily."

"Something erotic, you mean," she teases. One last chance at a feeling.

"It'll be both." He kisses her again.

_Nothing._ She starts to slip out of his arms. "My name isn't Emily."


	3. December 9, 2003

The man sleeping beside her isn't like the men she's been with before. Tom is younger, quieter, generally more shy. He has black eyes, dark brown waves of hair, is clean shaven. He's soft and sweet. He holds her when she cries and whispers honeyed words into her mouth when they kiss, leaving a gentle hum to reverberate along her lips.

He gives her a purpose here like nothing else does. There is no meaning in what she does now, no reason in her circumstances. He makes Emily real.

She hates him for it.

The first time she let him sleep in her bed, he asked about her scars. His fingers had grazed them half a dozen times before that moment. He could have drawn their curves with great alacrity before he'd even seen them. There were two on her back, one at the base of her neck - from the bullets - and more on the front of her chest from the procedures to remove them: small, zig-zagged lines jutting into her, raised above her, marring what was once a smooth plain of white with angry pink reminders of the life she'd left behind.

That night, she'd told him of a car accident that would have killed her if it was real. She didn't tell him that she didn't like to fly or go into official buildings because of the bullet lodged near the base of her skull that makes metal detectors go off. She didn't tell him, while he examined her with his eyes, that she hates the way they look and feel and are. Because they remind her of Olivia and Elliot and Elliot running out of her sight and Olivia pressing so hard into her, trying to save her.

He touches her as if she is made of glass. He kisses her, always, like she is going to break in his arms.

She despises him for that, too.

Elliot was strong and rough and hard. She always assumed the forcefullness he showered her with was bred from the things he saw everyday. When he fucked her, it was a way to purge himself. It was something he couldn't do with Kathy, because, she guessed, he was more like Tom with Kathy, always afraid of breaking her. It was like talking: blatant, honest with Alex; edited with his wife. It didn't matter if Alex broke.

Tom stirs and gives her a small smile. "Emily."

"Hey."

"Can't sleep?"

She shakes her head. "No."

"Come here." She settles in his arms, her head against his chest, her hips against his. He kisses her forehead. "You're so tense. Work stressing you out?"

She wants to laugh. "I'm fine. Just tired."

He whispers, "Try and relax." She nods against him, breathes him in, deeply. "Goodnight, Emily."

She resents the way he whispers a name that will never truly belong to her into the darkness. It defines Alex as Emily and she wants to cry. Yes, she decides, she resents that most of all.


	4. December 3, 2003 thru September 29, 2003

Emily wakes at 7:30am, half-expecting a phone call from Elizabeth Cabot nine minutes later that never comes. At work, there are no balloons or even goofy polka-dotted hats, as there had been for Jeremy, the intern, a week ago.

Not that she wants balloons and hats...

She glances at the pile of cancellations on her desk, checks the date: December 3.

Her birthday. _Alex's_ birthday.

Emily was born on the cusp of autumn, just as summer dies.

"Everything okay, Emily?"

She looks up at Tom, a claims adjuster from down the hall. "Yeah." She smiles.

Today she silently turns thirty-six.

* * *

When she sleeps, she wakes unable to breathe, suffocating, clawing at the smooth white of the inside of a cooler. In reality, the cooler is a blue pillow with a penchant for molding to her.

As she sits awake, Casey wonders if the ADA who came before her ever held a dying child in her arms. It didn't feel heroic. It felt humbling, disheartening. As important as people's money was, it wasn't the same as their children, spouses, friends... She was dealing in lives now. Lives expendable to some.

She contemplates calling Elliot. She's heard he never sleeps well either.

* * *

He sits with his back to her on the couch in the middle of their living room. His head rests in his hands, his elbows on his knees. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he was crying. Elliot didn't cry.

"Come to bed." She says, gently. "You've been up for over two days."

His voice is thick. "I'm not tired."

"Did something else happen?"

He can't tell her Alex is alive, but gone. "No." He lies, his eyes stinging with tears. _'You were supposed to protect her!'_ "I just need to be alone."

"Okay," she whispers, defeated.

* * *

He doesn't touch her; he stares. _It's not her._ Her blood pools around Olivia's hand, between fingers. Alex is pallid. He imagines she's cold to the touch.

Olivia looks at him. He's pale too and it's the first time she realizes that Alex and Elliot were ever more than just friends.

Alex's eyes drift over him, flutter shut. "Look at me... Look at me, Alex!" They open once more, spread over Olivia. Chill her.

She can feel Alex's slowing heartbeat against her fingertips. She can hear his thumping in her ear.

Olivia wonders when they began to beat as one.

* * *

She is lying on the sidewalk, staring up at a hazy darkness above. Night never falls on the city that doesn't sleep. She closes her eyes, re-opens them. Olivia comes before her, lips moving, murmuring in static noise. _Blink._ Where's Elliot? He'd been there. He'd offered to take her home. No, she was going to walk...

He steps into view, eyes wide, mouth agape. She wants to reach for him - _he'll save her!_ - but her arms feel weighed down; in her throat, she gurgles blood.

She looks at Olivia because it hurts less. _Blink. _And then she lets go.


	5. September 29 thru September 28, 2003

Alex sits down on one of the black leather couches of the hotel suite. She'd been hidden in Chelsea, a particularly arbitrary place for them to put her. She didn't mind, really, except for the fact that it felt permanent though it wasn't. In a week, she'd be home. The threat would be abated, Zapata would be in jail.

Until then, a guard stood outside the door and another was downstairs. Olivia had been assigned to stay with her and Elliot refused to leave. So they were there, too. Elliot had gotten a cot to be placed in the sitting area. Olivia and Alex were sharing the overly large bed in the other room.

Now it is past two in the morning and Olivia has long since fallen asleep. Alex assessed Olivia's position as she left the room: the arm across her stomach, the other thrown above her head. Alex had watched the hand on her side gently rise and fall a few times with her breath. It was comforting, watching her breathe, knowing Olivia was alive. Like she was. Like Elliot was.

They'd get through this, the three of them. They could make it through anything.

She looks at Elliot stretched out on his side, his back turned towards the bedroom door and her. His body is too long for the cot. Even with his knees slightly bent, his feet hang off the edge.

The leather groans when she sits and his body tenses immediately. He shifts and places his hand, instinctively, closer to his gun on the end table nearest him.

"Elliot, it's just me," she says, softly. He visibly relaxes, if only slightly and he turns to her.

"What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep."

He motions for her to join him on the edge of the cot. "Me neither."

"I didn't wake you?"

"I've been staring at the door."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "I don't know." He takes one of her hands. "You're trembling."

"I'm... a little cold." She lies. She doesn't want to worry him.

Elliot reaches down to the end of his makeshift bed for the blanket and wraps it around her shoulders. It's the most physical contact she's had with him in months.

"You should be home. It's not your job to protect me."

He kisses her temple, chastely. "Haven't we had this conversation before?" He almost smiles.

"This is my fight now."

"We work together. It's _our_ fight, Alex."

"What if--?" The thousands of possibilities leave her without words.

"I'm not walking away unless you do."

She shakes her head. She's can't and he _has_ to. If anything went wrong... if what happened to Donovan happened to him... She couldn't look at Kathy and his kids. She couldn't explain that it was his choice. Because it wasn't. He was doing this for her. Because he cared about her at one time.

She would never forgive herself.

"You can't do this for me."

He forces another smile. "Who said I was?"


	6. August 1, 2003 thru April 30, 2003

She doesn't expect it to hurt the way it does. _She_ let go. _She_ said goodbye. _She_ said it wouldn't work out.

And, now, _she_ is nursing a glass of Merlot on a Friday night, waiting for his call. Like a teenager, except with the wine instead of a half-pint of ice cream.

He'd gotten too close. That was the problem. There were strings.

If it hadn't been so wrong, it might've been right.

If it hadn't hurt so much, she might've stayed.

If she knew Kathy wouldn't pick up the phone, she might call.

Instead, she takes another sip.

* * *

She kisses him, knowing it will be the last time. For that, she really tastes him, savors him. And, for a second, she contemplates break-up sex, though it wouldn't happen just once... but two times, three... until she never let go.

"Let me give you a ride home."

She refuses, as she did five minutes ago. A ride home would mean another night with him beside her. _He can't love her._

"It's a ride, Counselor."

"It's an affair, Detective."

He stiffens, draws away completely. She already feels a little more empty. "I never meant it to be."

"But it is."

* * *

He thinks of fireworks displays going on tonight. Of Kathy, his kids on Rockaway beach, lying in the sand, watching. He can see Lizzie pointing out one that glitters and Dickie mesmerized by the sparklers other kids have.

He looks at Alex across the table and smiles, weakly.

"You should go. I can finish this."

"Alex..."

"You should be with them.'

He wants to protest. Doesn't.

"_Go_." She waves him away. "You're distracting me anyway."

He leans over the desk and kisses her cheek. "I think I might love you," he says, lightly. And before she can respond, he's gone.

* * *

"Do you want children?"

"Pardon me?" She asks, her tongue drinking at her bottom lip, still tasting his kiss.

"It's a valid question."

She rolls off him and onto her back. Her eyes are open, staring at the ceiling, an arm draped across her bare stomach. "Valid, maybe, for people having a relationship. Not for people..._ doing_ whatever it is we're doing."

"I was talking about _you_."

She thinks for a moment, "Yes. Someday... A boy. maybe."

When she turns, he looks at her thoughtfully, waiting for something more. She tangles their legs, "'Cops and Robbers' beats dolls any day."

* * *

The coffee in front of him has long gone cold and probably stale. She clears the cup and begins to wash the dishes piling in the sink.

"Talk to me," she says. He's thinking of Ray Bevins. Of his own daughters. He stands, starts to dry what she's washed. "You don't have to do that."

Elliot ignores her. "I was thinking I'd do the same thing. Kill the man that hurt my daughter. Except I wouldn't use a gun." He doesn't have to say anymore.

She imagines the hands that often roam her body around a rapist's neck. Breaking them.


	7. April 23, 2003

She'd hurt another person. Unintentionally, of course.

The reason she got into this business was two-fold. Her father had made a career in corporate law, manipulating contracts for clients and ensuring, when one party broke the agreement, it either wasn't his client or his client got the better deal in the end.

She had started out in law school expecting to follow her father, to one day work at his firm. But contracts and municipal bonds did nothing for her and she soon decided she would prefer criminal law.

It wasn't until she worked, during one of her summers, at the district attorney's office that she realized she also wanted to be a prosecutor.

_It is the defense attorneys who actually made money_, her aunt told her once. But she couldn't help put criminals back on the streets.

_Everyone deserves a fair trial_, her mother argued. Of course, she countered, but she wanted to be the one to make sure there was justice.

She believed in justice then. In fairness. In truth and goodness. She was idealistic and not yet jaded by the reality of the things people do to each other.

Tonight wasn't fair. Tonight there was no justice. Cheryl Avery had been beaten to the brink of death because she wasn't a man and she wasn't yet a woman. She belonged in jail - she'd taken a life - but Alex had explored every avenue available to give her a chance at safety. And she still got hurt.

Olivia had wanted to drive her home, but she wanted to return to her office, where she is now at almost three in the morning. She has barely made a dent in the arraignment files she was going through. She is going through a robbery case when she hears a knock.

Elliot smiles from the doorway.

"Hi. What are you doing here?"

"Tea?" He hands her a cup from a 24-hour deli next door.

"Thanks." She looks at him while she takes a small sip. "I'm assuming you didn't come all the way down here to bring me tea." He sits down on the couch and waits for her to join him.

"I'm catching tonight. Thought I would stop by. Liv said you didn't go home."

"No. I have arraignments in the morning."

He watches her for a minute. "You're thinking about her? Cheryl."

"I never wanted to hurt anyone. I wanted to help people, put away the bad guys."

He leans across the expanse between them, kisses her mouth softly. "Pain is inevitable. Someone is always going to get hurt." His hand rubs hers. "It's just how it is." She smiles weakly. The pager on his belt beeps. "911. I've gotta go. Why don't you go home, try to sleep?"

"I'm fine, El. I'll see you in the morning." He kisses her again, a quick goodbye, as if it were ritual, as if they'd been doing it for years. When he's gone, she returns to her desk and opens another file.


	8. March 31, 2003 thru January 11, 2003

He sings Fleetwood Mac songs in the shower and pretends to perform Lindsey Buckingham guitar solos complete with sound effects and air guitar.

Once, when she joined him unexpectedly in the middle of one such solo, his face turned red and he'd choked an excuse before she'd laughed, saying it was endearing, that she had grown up with _Rumours_ and _Tusk_.

She presses up against him, kisses him chastely. His singing reminds her not everything they do is wrapped up in blood and anger and permanent scars.

"Now..." Running a soapy sponge down his chest, she purrs, "where were you?"

* * *

Their kisses have become kisses not of want, but of punishment, the kind that scorch and scar.

When he reaches for her neck, she arches. His lips bruise her collarbone, his teeth blight her jaw.

She draws him to the couch. He has her shirt over her head; his hands are tormenting her breasts: twisting, pinching, kneading. She chokes back a groan, shifting slightly to allow him access to her pants, then the final piece of cotton separating them.

He slides into her slowly, but quickens. When he comes, he pushes deep inside. She's left torn apart and wanting more.

* * *

Caroline Cabot puts down her fork. Her grey eyes pierce her sister until Alex is forced to look up. They could be twins except Alex is taller and she has their mother's nose, their father's eyes.

"Tell me about him."

"Who?" She touches the pendant at her throat.

"The guy."

Alex dips her head, blushing. "No." She takes a bite of salad.

"Is that from him?" She's pointing to the pendant.

She swallows a long sip of wine before admitting, smiling softly, "Yes."

"It's beautiful." She leans in. "Now, the _real question_," Pauses. "How is he in bed?"

Alex grins.

* * *

He's never been attracted to cigarette ads or found lighting up especially stimulating until he catches her taking the first drag of a Marlboro Light.

"Counselor," Elliot greets.

She drops the cigarette, puts out the end with the toe of her black pump. Grey ash litters the sidewalk. "Are you all right? I heard about Kendall."

"I'm okay, I guess. I didn't realize you smoked."

"Socially."

"You're _alone_."

Alex blushes, "You and Olivia were undercover. I went through about half a pack just today."

He places his hand at her lower back and pulls her close, "Let's get a drink."

* * *

"What are you doing with Kathy's scarf?" He tugs gently at the purplish cloth hanging around Olivia's neck.

She hands him his cup of coffee. "It was at Alex's apartment. She gave it to me to wear one night." She looks him over. "What was _Alex_ doing with Kathy's scarf?"

"Actually, they must have the same scarf. You know, buy a scarf on the street corner... they're all similar." He touches the tag and hopes his lie isn't too implausible, "Kathy marks the tags on hers and the girls' things so they don't get confused with each other."

Olivia smirks.


End file.
